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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25385341">Oh now, I’m breaking down</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableDoll/pseuds/IneffableDoll'>IneffableDoll</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Breakdown [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Anxiety, Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hopeful Ending, Hugs, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Rating for Language, The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:42:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,176</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25385341</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableDoll/pseuds/IneffableDoll</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley was holding himself together, and he was fine.<br/>And then he fell apart.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Breakdown [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985194</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>261</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Oh now, I’m breaking down</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is almost certainly TMI, but I had a really bad panic attack last week. Normally, when I have a panic attack or extreme anxiety, I write the comfiest, fluffiest sap I can possibly manage. That’s not what happened this time, and this bit of catharsis writing is my exception. It’s very outside my usual fare, but I hope it’s decent enough to be worth sharing.<br/>TW for graphic descriptions of panic attacks, based on my own experiences for the most part. There’s also a hint of disassociation involved in that, and some PTSD elements.<br/>Title from Vienna Teng’s “Augustine.”</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Crowley was holding himself together, and he was fine.</p><p>Through the attempted murder from Hell, through discovering the bookshop ablaze, through seeing Aziraphale again, through driving his fireball of a Bentley across a wall of Hellfire, through facing down Armageddon and literal fucking Satan himself, Crowley held himself together.</p><p>He held himself together as he sat on a bench with Aziraphale, and he held himself together as they sat side by side on the bus, and he held himself together as they got off and took the elevator to a floor that didn’t exist, and he held himself together as they crossed the threshold of his flat.</p><p>Crowley shrugged off his jacket, tossing it to the floor indifferently, exhausted and worn to his very bones. He was coated in grime and sweat that he was pretty sure demons weren’t supposed to produce. He relaxed his shoulders. All he wanted was to sleep.</p><p>And then he fell apart.</p><p>He had been holding himself together for so long, through so much. He hadn’t even realized that’s what he had been doing until he was somewhere – not safe, but secluded. Humans cower under layers of blankets and comforters because it makes them feel isolated in a comfortable way, like nothing and no one can see them. The monsters that lurk in the shadowy corners of your bedroom can’t touch you.</p><p>That’s how it felt, walking into his flat, this place he had never called home. It wasn’t home. It wasn’t safe, and this wasn’t over yet. But it was familiar, he had been here before, and there were walls and it was dark and he suddenly found that whatever binding glue he’d been using to tie himself up, to make himself swagger and smirk and quip – it was gone, evaporated, dissolved into nothingness. It had been gone for a long time, but it was now that he noticed, now that he saw just how long ago he had started to crack, and now that he broke.</p><p>He staggered against the wall, bracing himself with a hand. The other came up to cover his mouth as his breathing grew suddenly heavier, faster, faster. Breathe. In and out, inandout<em>inandout. (</em>He held his breath for hours, eyes stinging from smoke as he drove his burning Bentley, his <em>Bentley</em> – he couldn’t <em>breathe-)</em></p><p>Tears overwhelmed him, searing like an iron pressed against his eyes and scorching skin, the heat and salt stinging. His eyelids came down heavily but did nothing to staunch the broken dam.</p><p>Sobs engulfed his body, shaking and branding him in pain and heat, taking over, liquid mucus spilling over lips curled in a completely silent cry. (He was in a pub, and <em>his best friend was dead-)</em></p><p>His body trembled and he found himself sinking to the ground. The world was so loud, but his thoughts were everywhere, louder. His knees struck the concrete floor. (Like to the tarmac as Satan cracked through the very crust of the Earth, and there was no hope to hope for, not anymore.)</p><p>
  <em>(There is no “our side.” Not anymore.)</em>
</p><p>Everything was quiet around him, but he was so loud, his gasps for air harsh and sharp and fast, fast, breathing, breathe. “Breathe, you can breathe. It’s okay, it’s alright, dear. Just breathe in more slowly, like this…”</p><p>It vaguely registered that someone else was there, there were hands and words, but he was so far into his own head he could hardly spare it a thought. Too far away, too distant from the crushing weight of despair, of grief delayed, of panic overwrought and arduous and demanding.</p><p>He could have died over and over today. He though Aziraphale had. The pressure of the planet on his shoulders alone, it often felt; him against everything. He had never dared to hope that there was someone else who could help him, and when Aziraphale turned away, he’d never felt so alone.</p><p>
  <em>(He’s back now, he’s here, you didn’t lose him-)</em>
</p><p>He shivered, though he wasn’t cold. In fact, he was overheating, he was hot. (Hot as the cramped, humid hallways of Hell, where the air was heavy and thick with melancholy and anguish, the scent of boiling flesh.)</p><p>He needed to breathe <em>breathebreathe…</em></p><p>He thought of the heat in the bookshop, then. When everything he loved had been taken from him again, as it always was, always would be. (Hecouldneverbesafe.)</p><p>He felt encased in a fog, a suffocating miasma that sucked out the oxygen and the logic, something that made sensation and touch itself vague, detached; and yet his every thought and motion stabbed through him, a throbbing, pounding ache in his forehead, and his persistent heartbeat made his muscles sore with the effort of contracting and stiffening and cramping.</p><p>His brain conjured images of snapping veins, of colliding blood cells, of flaking skin. He imagined helplessly that as he shook, as the hot tears tore down his cheeks, that his red eyes were left scarred as with flame. The trembling of his hands, of his entire body, the shuddering of heat and cold and the disconnect of where he was, left him sure he had shattered, the pieces of his being scattered against cold concrete, black scorch marks of his demonic soul streaking the grey.</p><p>And still, he struggled to breathe. Among everything, as he drowned in the confusion of his head, of all the feelings repressed and ignored during the day – <em>for eleven years, for six thousand fucking years </em>– he knew he needed to breathe. He technically did not, but of all the things to remember, this was the one clear thought in his mind.</p><p>He breathed.</p><p>He knew he was breathing too fast. He knew, in a faraway understanding of the concept, that when humans did this, it was called a panic attack. He needed to slow his gasping down, or to<em> stop</em> – but that thought made it worse as images of the M25 flashed across his brain. (He couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop, needed to keep going, <em>Aziraphale needed him,</em> dammit…)</p><p>“Shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s okay Crowley, come back to me, you’re okay, it’s alright. Shh, let it out, dear, let yourself cry. You don’t need to be strong anymore…”</p><p>Among the symphonic chaos of his relentless panic, gentle, soothing nothings filtered into his consciousness. He became aware that beyond the sensation of his drenched face, of grimy hands, of hard breathing – there was a soft shoulder of velvet against his chin. Soft arms around him, holding him up, and the soft fabric of the back of a waistcoat twisted in his dirty hands, gripping so tight the seams were surely bursting.</p><p>He cataloged these feelings carefully, his breathing slowing as he took in the fact that he was in his flat. He was on the floor. The room was cold, but his skin was on fire. And he was being held.</p><p>By Aziraphale.</p><p>Who he was clutching back. And he couldn’t bring himself to care that he was cutting off Aziraphale’s circulation, that the angel was smudged with soot, that they were never usually this close – none of that mattered.</p><p>He needed to breathe.</p><p>Aziraphale was alive, he was alive. Crowley was alive, they were both alive. For the moment, they were here. (Whatever else happened, <em>they were here.)</em></p><p>“Shh, that’s it, come back to me, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, his voice tight but so forcibly gentle; it ached to hear, so clearly, the underlying pain. Crowley pulled back to see Aziraphale’s face, despite knowing his own was gross and wet and twisted with contracting facial muscles and tears that continued to course down his face.</p><p>“A-Ang…” Crowley tried, but choked on the simple word.</p><p>Aziraphale looked at him, and there was nothing but overwhelming compassion to be found in his expression. “It’s okay, Crowley,” he repeated, bringing one of the hands that had been wrapped around Crowley’s frame to push some loose, red strands from the demon’s face. He exuded such an aura of peace and reassurance that it took Crowley a moment to realize his breathing had slowed to a nearly normal pace.</p><p>Crowley sniffed, and mindfully loosened his death grip around Aziraphale’s center. He did not let go, and Aziraphale made no attempt to leave their circle of comfort.</p><p>“You’ve been through a lot,” Aziraphale whispered, almost more to himself as he continued carding a hand through Crowley’s hair, gently, so gently, more gently than a demon had ever been handled before. “But you’re safe now. We’re here, and you’re going to be okay.”</p><p>Crowley swallowed. He still didn’t think he could make words, so he nodded.</p><p>Aziraphale gave a smile. A small, sad one, but a smile, and Crowley’s chest ached at the sight. In a good or a bad way, he couldn’t tell, but it was a dull pain, a familiar one.</p><p>After a couple more moments during which Crowley’s tears finally stopped and he made a fruitless attempt to wipe his face a bit – Aziraphale miracled him a lacy handkerchief he normally wouldn’t be caught dead near and used it liberally – Aziraphale addressed him again in the same, dulcet tones. “How are you feeling, Crowley? A bit better?”</p><p>Crowley nodded again. “Yeah,” he attempted roughly, before clearing his throat and adding a small, “sorry.” A delayed sense of shame rose in him and he looked away, barely resisting the urge to bury his face in Aziraphale’s shoulder again. To hide, to curl up in a dark corner like the snake he was. Aziraphale hadn’t seen him this bad before, not even during the Spanish Inquisition, and the cruelest parts of his mind told him that Aziraphale would judge him for the weakness, belittle him for the vulnerability, pick at his pathetic display of fragility.</p><p>A demon shouldn’t be like this. Even weak humans weren’t usually like this.</p><p>The worst part was the knowledge that Aziraphale could not possibly understand how it felt, the despair that had destroyed Crowley, that was webbed around his throat, like thick strands of cobwebs filling in his lungs. How could he? (Crowley didn’t want him to, not really. Aziraphale should never feel like this. But he wanted to be understood, nonetheless.)</p><p>And yet, when Aziraphale replied, it was soft. “Crowley,” he said, so quiet it drew the demon to look back at him almost involuntarily, “you have absolutely nothing to apologize for.”</p><p>Crowley swallowed back another wave of tears. “’M just being pathetic. I should be fine. Shouldn’t be like…this-”</p><p>Aziraphale shook his head, eyebrows drawing in sympathetically. Not pitying, but caring. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, or to anyone. You don’t need to justify your feelings, Crowley. I’m here for you, no matter what state you’re in.” He took a deep, fortifying breath, gaze skittering for the first time since he began talking before returning shakily but firmly to Crowley’s wide, golden eyes. <em>“Our Side,</em> you said. It took me a long time, but I’m here now. And I’m not going anywhere.”</p><p>Crowley felt tears spilling out again and scrubbed at them absently, still staring unblinkingly at the angel’s face. He was genuine. There was an apology there, there was trust. There was nothing but <em>love,</em> he realized sharply. Aziraphale was always so careful to hide it, but now it was overwhelming. It was obvious.</p><p>Crowley felt himself let go of his final apprehensions and doubts, the plagues of fears of and for the angel he loved back. For the first time, he let himself wonder if things would be okay. If he would be.</p><p>Crowley drew Aziraphale closer again, until they settled into a close hug, comfortable but not constricting. Crowley turned his face against the angel’s neck.</p><p>“You’ve always been here, you know,” Crowley whispered, lips brushing skin, his voice strained taut but sure. “Even if you don’t think you were. You were there.”</p><p>“Well,” Aziraphale said in a tone that implied he did not believe him, “I am here for you now, and for everything that comes next.” He paused. “Which I do have some thoughts on, by the way, but we’ll deal with that later.”</p><p>“Mmm.” Crowley took a deep breath, held it, and breathed out slowly. “Clever angel.” Aziraphale gave a breath of a laugh and pulled Crowley in a little tighter. He suspected, then, that Aziraphale needed this as much as Crowley did.</p><p>As they sat together, and breathed together, Crowley’s tears petered out and the trembling stopped until he was loose-limbed and pliant in the angel’s embrace. His heart rate let go of its frantic pace and settled into a throb that still ached, but was comforting in its consistency.</p><p>The demon did not say thank you. There was no need.</p><p>Crowley’s flat may have never been his home, and had never truly been safe. But there, with Aziraphale, he knew that – for the moment, for the time being, for however long this lasted – he was loved, and he was safe.</p><p>The angel held the demon together when he fell apart, and together, they collected the pieces.</p>
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